Research Article
Mohd Azrie Awang, Ramlan Aziz,
Abstract
This work aimed to investigate the effect of solvents on the extraction of some phythochemical from Melastoma malabathricum leaves. Melastoma malabathricum or locally known as Senduduk belongs tothe family of Melastomataceae and rich in flavonoid contents. The solvents tested were deionized water (H2O), ethanol (EtOH), ethyl acetate (EA) and hexane (Hex) and six hour of extraction time using Soxhlet extraction (SOX). The main compounds (quercetin and rutin) of Melastoma malabathricum were identified by High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) in specific solvents of extraction such as H2O,EtOH, EA and Hex. The results revealed that water was pronounced than the other solvents tested. The highest yield of extraction can be obtained during water extract(28.03 wt.%), followed by ethanol(26.61 wt.%), ethyl acetate (4.61 wt.%) and hexane (1.92 wt.%), respectively.In addition, Quercetin content was found to be higher in EtOH extract with 0.77 ppm, EA extract with 0.68 ppm, followed by Hex with 0.49 ppm. However, rutin content was found to be higher in EtOH extract (83.13 ppm), followed by EA extract (56.53 ppm) and Hex extract (0.66 ppm), respectively. The data generated in this work, provide an insight on phytochemical content of Melastomamalbathricum leaves at different solvents polarities.